To put it simply, you are a self-employed person if you work for yourself and are not employed as an employee. This article will tell you more about the meaning of self-employment and the tax obligations.

If your income is derived from the buying and selling of goods, or from providing professional or personal services, you are considered as carrying on a trade, business or profession and a self-employed person.

A self-employed person may be a sole proprietor or a partner of a partnership business.

As a self-employed person, you are chargeable to profits tax on the assessable profits of your sole proprietorship or partnership business. You need to:

• keep sufficient business records for at least 7 years;
  
• prepare accounts based on your accounting records;
  
• complete and submit a tax return for reporting business profits or losses;
  
• notify the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) in writing about your liability to tax, not later than 4 months after the end of the basis period for the year of assessment concerned, unless you have already received the tax return from the Department;
• notify IRD about the cessation of your business within 1 month of cessation;
  
• notify IRD about your change of address within 1 month of the change; and
  
• pay the tax.

You can know more about the tax obligations of the self-employed through the following links:

• Notification of chargeability
  http://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/tax/noc.htm
• More on notification of change of correspondence address
  http://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/tax/ind_nca.htm
• A guide to keeping business records
  http://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/pdf/51c_pam.pdf
• Admissibility of business records kept in electronic form for tax purposes
  http://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/pdf/pam60e.pdf
• Business registration
  http://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/tax/bre.htm
• Employers' tax obligations
  http://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/tax/ere.htm

If you receive a tax return from IRD, you must complete and submit it in time even if your business had ceased, was inactive or operating in losses.